We Are the Dreamers of Dreams
by rubyshards
Summary: A collection of drabbles about frail smiles, ocean rivalry, and everything else that's locked away inside of the heart, all rolled into one. [yaoi, yuri, some het]
1. Tough Love

**Title**: Tough Love  
**Rating**: PG/K+  
**Characters**: Leon, Cloud  
**Summary**: Leon has a little encounter with the Heartless that doesn't good near as well as it should have.  
**Notes**: Written because I think Leon in pain is _hilarious_. (I'm so cruel to him.)

* * *

_Pop._

"Ungh."

_Pop._

"_Cloud._"

_Smash, rustle._

"What?"

_Pop._

"Dammit Cloud, stop! I can handle it my self."

"No, you can't. It's a _dislocated shoulder, _Leon. I need to pop it back into place." Gray eyes narrowed and Leon backed away from Cloud, out of his grasp and against the wall beside the bed with a glare shooting toward glowing blue eyes and a grimace plastered onto his face. One hand was clutching his injured shoulder, holding the limp appendage with a tender grasp as if having his hand there could ease the pain in it.

Damn the Heartless. It was the first time in _ten years _that he had dropped his guard – all because of Cloud, the bastard – and he came out of it with a fresh wound running diagonally from his collar bone to his ribs and a dislocated shoulder.

Which still needed to be set back into place.

Which hurt

Very badly.

Cloud was still laughing at him for this, and he knew it. So what if he couldn't take pain very well?

Damn the Heartless.

Damn Cloud for wanting to reset his shoulder.

Damn Cloud for distracting him in the first place.

"Just leave it alone. I'll-"

Leon found his words being shoved back down his throat by a warm tongue, rough hands falling onto his ribs and tracing in a gentle curve up the edges of the bandages there, careful of the wound underneath. He blinked, eyes sliding shut as the hands worked their way up to his shoulder, pulling away his hand before tightening there with a small squeeze and –

_Snap!_

"_**God dammit, Cloud!"**_


	2. Tough Love: Act Two

**Title**: Tough Love: Act Two  
**Rating**: PG/K+  
**Pairing**: LeonxCloud  
**Summary**: Cloud tries to 'apologize' for his actions, but doesn't really get anywhere.  
**Notes**: Second half to _Tough Love,_obviously.

_

* * *

_

He was _not_ happy about this situation.

After an hour of ignoring Cloud (which the blonde called pouting, which it was _not, _because he did _not _pout), Aerith binding his arm into a sling, and Yuffie terrorizing him over how 'stupid' he looked, Leon had made his way to the couch, a cup of tea clutched in his free hand and a scowl painted onto his face.

No, he was not happy about this. Not happy at all.

"Are you still upset?"

"…" He wasn't going to humor Cloud by answering. It would only encourage the blonde to provoke him further (something he had learned through many experiences), and the headache drumming at the base of his skull really didn't want him to deal with that at the current moment.

And he _was_ still angry.

Cloud hadn't played fair, dammit.

A sigh was given at his lack of a response, Cloud moving to his side and falling down on the couch with a groan, his body pressed a little closer than necessary and their hips brushing together.

Leon didn't mind it, really.

But he wasn't going to answer. Even if Cloud put on the 'I'm just an innocent bystander' face.

"You're pouting."

He glared and tightened his jaw in a silent answer of 'No, I'm not.'

"Yes, you are."

"I am not."

A smile graced Cloud's face at the desired answer, slender fingers lacing through Leon's in a flicker of movement as the cup of tea was left, forgotten, on the coffee table. Cloud pressed his lips to his knuckles, his familiar, mischievous grin hidden behind the pale skin of Leon's hand.

On rare occasions, Cloud could be horribly romantic.

It made him wonder if the blonde had hit his head during their last fight.

"You are. And it's cute." A smirk.

"… Whatever." Cloud rolled his eyes, leaning forward and pressing a small kiss to the corner of his mouth, lips pulled up into a smirk as he climbed to his feet in overconfident triumph.

"But you look like an idiot in that sling."


	3. Glass Bottle

**Title**: Glass Bottle  
**Rating**: G/K  
**Pairings**: CloudxAerith, LeonxCloud  
**Summary**: Sometimes, she just wishes that she could toss out a little bottle, and it would drift off to him, far away.  
**Notes**: For the theme of "if" at the 101 Kisses LiveJournal community.

* * *

_Sometimes I find myself wondering._

_It's normally not important; just those questions that sometimes drift through a person's head when they're sitting by themselves, curled on the couch and waiting for that person to get home that they always wait for, yet who never comes back._

_Normally I find myself wondering about you. About if you'll ever come back, if you'll come back for him. About if you won, and are now content because you've reached a conclusion, and have no need to come back, or if, maybe, you lost, and maybe, just maybe, I'll never get to see you again._

_Those thoughts scare me._

_I know you'd laugh at me. You're probably laughing at me right now. But you worry me._

_Because I don't know what I'm going to hear about you next. I'm afraid of every person that comes from some faraway land, because I'm afraid that they just might say those few words that I don't want to hear._

_That they knew you._

That they saw you 'fight the good fight,' and saw how you fell in the end.

_It hurts to think that._

_But I know that I'm not the only one. I know that the others are worried, too, maybe more so than I am. They just know how to hide it._

_He's worried the most out of all of us, though. I can see it in those nervous glances he gives the Keyblade master as he recounts his tales of the places that he's been, can see those silent questions burning in his ice-colored eyes._

_'Did you see him? Is he alright?'_

_I think he misses you just as much as I do._

Emerald green eyes stare, longingly, at the bottle clutched in soft, delicate hands, and a small grin crosses rose-colored lips as she presses a gentle kiss to the cold glass.

A kiss for good luck, to make sure he'll find it.

She's heard about this before. Heard about it from Sora.

_"There's this tradition back at home, on the island. Every year, everyone writes down his or her deepest thoughts, all of our hopes and our dreams, and letters to those we love, and we put them in bottles, like this one. Then we toss 'em out into the ocean."_

_"Into the ocean?"_

_"Yeah! So that someone can find them and help grant our wish."_

So she does just that.

The bottle drifts in the currents of the Bastion's ocean that goes against gravity into other worlds, sea green glass spinning around and around before vanishing out of sight, toward some destination other than here.

Hopefully to him. So he knows to come back to her and back to Leon.

Because he misses him the most, and she can't help but wonder that simple little phrase.

'What if…?'


	4. Little Pink BandAid

**Title**: Little Pink Band-Aid  
**Rating**: PG/K+  
**Pairing**: AerithxYuffie  
**Summary**: It's hard to find a band-aid that fits heart scratches.  
**Notes**: Giftfic for vollykins on LJ(volian).

* * *

Yuffie remembers when Aerith used to care for her, back before their lives went spiraling upside down and inside out and when they had still been happy and safe at home. She remembers when she used to be just a little girl, running through the bastion without a single care in the world, and when she used to trip and scrap her knee on the tiled, library floor. She smiles, because she remembers how she would cry afterward, how she would run to Aerith because no one else could make it feel better quite like she could and no one else had the little pink band-aid that looked quite like Aerith's did.

_"Where does it hurt most?"_

_Little lips pull down into a frown, and she presses a single finger to her reddened knee, eyes watering up at the stinging burn. "Right here!"_

_"Then I'll just have to kiss it and make it better."_

"Where does it hurt most?"

Now it's her turn to make it all better, to kiss away the pain and bandage up that little scrap on Aerith's heart that she hides from everyone's view with an oh so beautiful – yet so very false – rose-colored smile. Aerith takes her hands and presses her fingers to the lace on her dress, directly over her chest, with _that _grin still on her lips even when her emerald eyes darken slightly in the sadness that is buried there.

"Right here."

She frowns.

She doesn't know how to fix that, she says, she doesn't have the right sized, pink band-aid for heart scratches and she doesn't know what to kiss to make it all better, but she can try. And she's leaning forward and kissing away the false, gorgeous smile, to at least mend that little scratch the best that she can, and she's doing it without really realizing what she's doing, because all she knows is that a kiss will make it better.


	5. Playing in the Sand

**Title**: Playing in the Sand  
**Rating**: G/K  
**Character**: Kairi (Riku and Sora mentioned)  
**Summary**: She wants to know why she can't come and play 'knights,' too.  
**Notes**: Written for the challenge of 'envy' at the KH Drabble community on LiveJournal.

* * *

She doesn't really know why it bothers her so much.

Maybe because she knows that she can't join in, even though that's probably not the case. A frown creases her pretty little features, and she folds her arms behind her back as she leans against the palm tree, it's skin rough and comforting against her exposed spine.

Riku and Sora are always together. It's a known fact on the islands. Nothing's ever changed that since she's been here, and she knows that nothing probably ever will change that. They fight together perfectly, they play together perfectly, and they even talk together perfectly, almost like they read each other's minds (she's always wanted to know how one of them could start a sentence and the other could answer it even before he could ask it).

Her nose wrinkles up when she watches them tackle each other to the ground.

She's envious, she's decided. It's taken her all day, sittin' here, starin' at the two of them playing 'knights and dragons' in the sand, to come up with that word, but she's proud of herself for doing so.

Envious.

She chants it to herself, just 'cause she likes the sound of it coming from her mouth and the bitter taste of it on her tongue.

She wants to go splash in the blue water, too, but she knows that there's no room for her there, so she stays where she's at, sitting back and watchin' the boys roll across the wet beach and splash into the salty ocean tides. They resurface a moment later, sparkling sand clinging to their bare knees and their palms and elbows, and smiles bright on their sunburnt faces.

Her frown deepens.

All she wants to do is play 'knights,' too, but she knows that that's not gonna happen.

So she sits back, hands folded on her dirtied pink skirt, eyes dark with envy – she says it aloud again, just 'cause she can – and wishes that she could go down and play, too, but knowing that she can't, 'cause they're just too perfect for each other, and there's no room for her in all that perfection.


	6. Bedtime Stories

**Title**: Bedtime Stories  
**Rating**: G/K  
**Characters**: Yuffie, Aerith (implied AerithxYuffie, if you squint)  
**Summary**: A bedtime story to chase away the dark.  
**Notes**: For the challenge of 'literature' at the KH Drabble community on LiveJournal. Pre-Kingdom Hearts, in Hollow Bastion the night before the Darkness comes.

* * *

Yuffie pulls open the door to Aerith's room, pokes her head through the opening to peer, wide-eyed and frightened, through the dimly lit bedroom in search of her companion. It's one of 'those' nights, those dreaded too-scared-to-even-sleep nights, and she has nowhere else to go but here.

The light bulb in her little blue nightlight is out. She knows that that's not right, 'cause Cid changed it last week, and it normally runs perfectly fine for a few months before she needs to go get a new one. She tried to turn it on, but it sparkled out a moment after, plunging her into darkness. Her first reaction was to run from the room and head here, too scared to try to fix it herself, like she normally would.

Aerith always has the best solutions.

"I can't sleep."

She has that gut feeling. That feeling that something is creeping up behind her, that the boogeyman is coming and she can't crawl under her blankets in her own room to hide this time, and she can't sneak into Cloud's room to ask him to make sure there was nothing bad hiding in the shadows.

"Come in, then." The door shuts behind her quietly, and she dashes across the room, plunging into the welcoming embrace that she knows is there to greet her, her little head pressing into the white nightgown that Aerith wears to bed. It's simple, undecorated, but the light color of it makes everything just a little bit better, and Yuffie finds herself watching it for its light.

"The light's out again." Aerith smiles, full of understanding and motherly warmth – although she's really not that much older than Yuffie is – and the light from her smile makes up for the nightlight that isn't there in the corner of the room like it should be. "Read to me?"

She knows the routine, knows which books to choose and which story to tell to make the boogeyman go away, and she leans back, Yuffie in her arms, the book in her hands.

"How about I read you a different story tonight?" Yuffie pouts, looks up at her with pursed lips and a tiny glare, but Aerith only laughs it off.

"Is it a happy story? 'Cause I don't wanna hear it if it isn't."

"Of course it is." She relaxes back into the arms around her, snug under the blankets and basking in Aerith's light, content with that answer. "It's about starting a journey in a beautiful new land, full of adventure, kings, and knights who rescue little black-haired princesses." Yuffie giggles, 'cause she knows that Aerith made that last part up since the girl on the cover has brown hair, not black, but she doesn't really care, and she turns her attention back to the book in Aerith's arms.

And she lets the words chase away the dark.


	7. Surprise

**Title**: Surprise  
**Rating**: G/K  
**Characters**: Sora, Riku  
**Summary**: Sora decides that Riku needs to have a birthday party, if only just once.  
**Notes**: One day, I suddenly realized that the Kingdom Hearts kids did not have birthdays. This made me sad. So Sora told me he wanted to fix things up for Riku, at least.

* * *

Sora was surprised, to say the least, when he had learned that Riku had never (never, ever, _ever_) had a birthday party. Not. One. The boy's parents had never been home to give him one – or so Sora had been told, at least.

He had come to a conclusion (after much plotting and begging for permission).

Action had to be taken. It was that simple.

He would throw Riku a birthday party himself.

It was the perfect plan, really.

The banners had been hung, the cake – as messy and collapsed as it was – had been baked (with Mom's help, of course), and the gifts, one from each of them, had been wrapped and neatly stacked on the living room table.

All that was needed now as the birthday boy himself.

An excited giggle escaped from Sora's small mouth, his hand claming over his lips to hold back the sounds as he glanced over the edge of the couch, eyes bright. He needed to stay quiet – if Riku heard him, then the surprise would be ruined.

He didn't want that.

Footsteps falling on old floor boards and Riku's tiny voice calling out his name made a rush of excitement fill his stomach, a smile breaking out onto his face.

"Sora?"

_One…_

"Where are you?"

_Two…_

"Hey…"

_Three!_

"Surprise! Happy birthday, Riku!"


	8. Bad Luck

**Title**: Bad Luck  
**Rating**: G/K  
**Characters**: Leon, Cloud  
**Summary**: Leon is not a superstitious person.  
**Notes**: I wrote this for Friday the Thirteenth some odd months ago, so it's not really accurate any more, but whatever. Leon and Cloud, why are you both so fun to play with?

* * *

"You can't be serious about this, Cloud."

It was ridiculous. Who the hell believed in that kind of thing, anyway? He could understand young children, yes – he could even understand Yuffie – but a full-grown man?

But _Cloud_, of all people?

That was pushing it.

"I don't need any more bad luck, Leon. I have _plenty. _You should protect yourself, too, you know."

It was taking him all of his long practiced willpower to prevent himself from laughing and walking away.

Cloud was standing in front of him, face set into a visage of pure seriousness, with various 'good luck charms' littering his body. The blonde looked like an idiot, in Leon's honest opinion. A complete moron.

He was only wearing a pair of baby blue boxers (his lucky boxers, he had informed Leon) and a thin, white tank top, the goggles that he had 'borrowed' from Cid (for luck) strapped onto his head and Aerith's lucky hair ribbon bound around his left bicep.

It was _pathetic._

"There is no such thing as 'bad luck.'"

"Sure there's not." Cloud rolled his eyes. "I mean Cid only tripped by chance. The fact that it's Friday the thirteenth has _nothing _to do with it."

"Exactly." With that he turned to leave, one hand shoved into his pocket and the other wrapped around the hilt of Revolver, a sigh leaving his lips in exasperation.

"Fine, don't listen. But when you come back with bad luck, I'm going to laugh at you. No sympathy _at all._"

"Whatever."

When Leon returned fifteen minutes later, three long scratches from a surprise attack running down his thigh – leaving a rather irreparable tear in his _favorite _pants and breaking one of his _only _belts – and a sprained ankle from a rather nasty tumbled down the stairs, all Cloud had to say was 'I told you so.'


	9. Little Differences

**Title**: Little Differences  
**Rating**: G/K  
**Character**: Leon, Dalmation Puppies  
**Summary**: There's a reason that Leon spends more time with animals than humans.  
**Notes**: For the challenge of 'Leon and the puppies' at the KH Drabble community.

* * *

There was a reason why Leon spent most of his free time - when he wasn't battling the Heartless or training in the underground waterway – with the Dalmatian puppies in the second district house, as odd and pointless as this reason may seem. 

Puppies, as it stands, are very, very different from humans. Yes, their appearance is different, and they act completely opposite from humans.

But it wasn't that that made them so different.

Humans could lie. Humans could promise false promises, humans could break hearts, and humans couldn't care less if other humans were forgotten and lost, if only for their own gain. Humans were cruel and cold – much like him – and humans were fearful things, always worrying what others said and dreading things that can't be helped.

But the puppies; they were different. They were warm and comforting, they could love him without the questions and the arguments that a human's love would convey, and the comfort their company brought was so much better than any human's company.

It was pathetic, he knew. Who would have ever thought that the great lion, the Ice Prince himself, had such a soft spot for Dalmatians, of all things?

He had his reasons.

He'd just rather keep it a secret between him and the puppies.


	10. Funeral Pyre

**Title**: Funeral Pyre  
**Rating**: G/K  
**Character**: Riku  
**Summary**: You have to cast away your dreams to face the Dark.  
**Notes**: Heavily influenced by the song "This Place is a Prison" by The Postal Service. It is an excellent character song for Riku, and I listen to it when I angst about him, as sad as that might sound.

* * *

For some reason, he didn't want to tear his eyes away.

The flames licked up at his ankles, danced their red and orange and yellow ballet over the sands and closer to the dirtied old shoes that he wore. He didn't step back. He wasn't concerned about burning an old pair of tennis shoes, anyway.

A blackbird fluttered out from the fire, falling between his legs, and he tore his eyes away from the pile just for a moment to look down at the crumbled paper.

A burning castle. A princess standing next to a pool of fire and the knight, burned pure black with his hands missing to the fire demon skating over the glossy paper and his eyes turned to shriveling black holes from the heat.

He kicked it away, back into the fire, watched it burn into nothing.

Books, movies, posters, cards, drawings, all of it, all the fantasies, all the dreams, all the hopes and ideas and wants and desires he had ever had or felt.

He watched them all burn with a simple apathy in his eyes, a chiseled mask on his face.

And he turned away to walk toward that darkness over the horizon.


	11. Accidents Waiting to Happen

**Title:** Accidents Waiting to Happen  
**Rating: **G  
**Pairing: **AxelxRoxas  
**Summary: **Roxas wishes he could show Axel what it's like.  
**Notes:** For Obscurity.

* * *

_we are accidents_

_waiting_

_waiting to happen_

Roxas wishes, sometimes, that he could just show Axel what it is like to know the things he knows, to have those almost-real-yet-not-quite flickers of feeling whip at his empty-cold chest. He wishes he could press the feeling into the lukewarm body that holds onto his like he's a prize, and he wishes he could learn what Axel would say when he's faced with these phantom things they can only dream about.

He thinks Axel would be surprised, and very happy, but he wants to know what Axel would feel when he was holding him. He wishes to know if Axel would feel love, when they were tangled together in Axel's bed, when he's spread out under the hellfire, and he wishes to know if Axel would feel fear, when he says he wants to run away forever and never come back.

He knows that he can't do anything, but he tries anyway, when Axel isn't aware. He tries pressing his faux feelings into Axel's body at night, when they're together – he spreads his hands out over Axel's so empty chest (the phantom sadness hurts him so much to feel nothing against his palms, when he knows there should be something) and he tries to force the dream-like feeling from his own not-so-body and into Axel's.

He's never accomplished anything, despite the fact that he's been trying it for days now, but he doesn't plan on giving up any time soon.

Sometimes, when he tries hard enough, he sees Axel smile in his sleep, or frown, or even laugh, gently, under his breath. He pours all he can into it, and when he does, he knows that Axel's dreaming of things he doesn't remember, as Roxas does at night, and he knows that at least it's working a little bit, even if Axel doesn't know it.

Sometimes, that's all he cares about, because then Axel _knows, _remembers a little bit more, when Roxas forgets a little bit more, and it's worth the holes it burns to see a smile slip onto the hellfire's lips.


	12. Moth Drawn to Flame

**Title**: Moth Drawn to Flame  
**Rating**: PG  
**Pairing**: AxelxRoxas  
**Summary**: "Swimming in the darkness, blind."  
**Notes**: For Obscurity.

* * *

"What did you do now?"

The room is colder than it normally is. The fire theme isn't as welcoming and comforting as he remembers it to be, and the photos and the relics seem cold and empty - the hellfire heat is dimmed down to a lukewarm breeze. A faint light glows from the blood-red candles dripping along the walls and down the shelves, and shadows dance over the two faces, dark devils' ballet on false masks.

_Trying to hide the truth._

Ruby blood glitters, jewels in the dark, on the out-stretched hands of the key as he sits, stoic, still and silent, a pale statue in the room. Perfect little rivets, lines in a map work of intricate designs along his palms, stand out from the blood refracting the light and sending a red explosion of shattered gems over his hands.

The blood rolls down his palms, drips along the curves of delicate, destructive hands, and splatters onto his coat. The fabric eats it up, dark stains on dark cloth, sticky and dry.

_Branded._

"Give me your hands." He does as told, doesn't argue back, holding out the perfect little cuts. The hellfire's own hands are stripped of their leather shields, naked and slender and pale in the candlelight. They curl around his, jerking them into the light. He recoils. "You're not careful enough. Gonna get yourself killed if you don't become more careful, and then what am I gonna do?"

A cold, empty laugh answers. White strips of cloth, snowy and clean, emerge from the darkness in the slender hands of the fire-wielder - the hellfire wraps them around his palms, and the blood, stains on the white, soaks through and spells out a pattern in the dark, a brand.

"I don't want it." The red-haired one pulls tight on the bandages, destructively so, and the key winces, bites his lip, metallic tang on his tongue.

"You're stupid." Nimble hands draw the bandages up over his forearms, stopping halfway to his elbow. He tucks in the corner of one, pins it up with a shining silver clasp, and moves onto the next. "You're going to get turned into a Dusk, and _then _what am I gonna do?"

The second bandage is tighter than the first - he points it out, but the fire ignores him, pinning it up just as the other one, anyway. He fidgets on the bed, pulling his black sleeves back down over the white bandages, darkness swallowing light, and hides his hands from view, rests them in his lap.

_Swimming in the darkness, blind._

"Why bandage it? It will heal on its own, even without the wrappings."

"Because I care." Slender fingers are on his face, spider legs trapping his cheeks and chin in a vice and forcing him to look up and into the molten green lava spilling into him.

"You _can't _care." Thin lips, a jester grin, fall on his face, press to his mouth, and pull out the gasps and the mumbles and the false feeling. The hellfire wraps him up in heat, pulls him close, and he clings, and feels tiny and needy, to his chest.

_Like a moth drawn to flame._


	13. Waiting

**Title**: Waiting  
**Rating**: G  
**Pairing**: TifaxAerith, CloudxAerith  
**Summary**: Aerith has been waiting for a long time.  
**Notes**: For Yuumoya, the Tifa to my Aerith. Love you, darling.

* * *

Her smile is as bright as always, and there's not a single hint of anything wrong. She looks _gorgeous _and _untouchable _just sitting up there, legs crossed, hands folded in her lap. It's hard to tell what she feels – if she feels anything at _all – _and she looks like a _goddess_.

She's waiting placidly like she always does. She's been waiting for him for _so long_, Tifa doesn't know how she can _wait and wait and **wait **_like there's nothing better to do.

She's crying inside, and Tifa wishes she'd stop waiting and _turn around and **see **_her waiting, too


	14. The Way the World Ends

**Title**: The Way the World Ends  
**Rating**: K  
**Characters**: Riku, Sora  
**Summary**: "This is the way the world ends; not with a bang but a whimper." - T.S. Eliot, _The Hollow Men  
_**Notes**: For the theme 'fear' at the Keyblade LJ community.

* * *

He watches the darkness eat them up from both sides, and he stares and blinks against it, helpless, not knowing what to do. He feels guilty and scared and panicked all of the sudden, and he fears the dark, fears what's going to happen to them and what might come after this.

He reaches forward, offering him his hand. If they're together, he knows that he won't be afraid.

Their hands don't touch, and the darkness suffocates him, and he can only think of one thing in all of the confusion:

_This is the way the world ends, isn't it?_


	15. The Three of Us

**Title**: The Three of Us  
**Rating**: K  
**Characters**: Riku, Sora, (Kairi mentioned); implied Riku/Sora, Sora/Kairi  
**Summary**: Riku and Sora talk about their plans for when they leave the island.  
**Notes**: Dialogue-only fic.

* * *

"We're going to grow old together - no, we're never gonna grow old! And we'll live in a house together with lots of crazy stuff decorating it, and we'll live by the water, so we can go swimming and sailing and exploring whenever we want! Our house will be simple, and it'll have a dock right next to it with two really nice boats - but nothing too fancy, 'cause, ya know, that's just not like us. We'll be able to go wherever we want, do whatever we want, and talk to whoever we want. We can be friends with everyone."

"I think you're exaggerating, Sora. We can't be friends with everyone."

"Of course we can. Have you ever tried? You wouldn't know until you tried."

"Alright. Say we really do reach a new world, and we really do end up growing old together, just the two of us-"

"Kairi's gotta come too, or else it's not the whole group, Ri."

"... Yeah, you're right. Just the three of us. What are we going to do from there? We'd need to find jobs and a place to live."

"We'll build a place! And we'll do whatever jobs people want us to. We'll be like mercenaries, ya know? We'll be good at everything - we'll help everyone."

"Sora, that's not going to work."

"Of course it is. Just trust me. We'll have the nicest house by the clearest spot on the beach, and we'll have tons of friends and plenty of nice jobs and just enough money to make it through comfortably."

"You're sure about that, aren't you?"

"Of course I am. If you aren't going to be, then I better be, to balance you out, you stiff pessimist."

"Hey, I am _not _stiff, and I'm not a pessimist."

"Right. Sure you aren't, Mister 'That's-Not-Going-To-Work'."

"Alright, I give up. I believe you. We'll build a house and we'll grow old together."

"We'll be best friends forever. Just the three of us."

"Just the three of us."


	16. Sunset

**Title**: Sunset  
**Rating**: K  
**Characters**: Riku, Maleficent  
**Summary**: Riku muses on what he misses the most from the islands.  
**Notes**: For the themes 'sea,' 'sunshine' and 'missing' at the Keyblade LJ community.

* * *

It's the ocean that he misses the most. He doesn't miss his family, and he certainly doesn't miss the constraining, suffocating prison that was the islands. He misses Selphie and Tidus and Wakka, just a little bit, but he knows they probably don't miss him as much as he misses them, so he doesn't waste his energy trying to miss them. It's not worth it.

But the ocean still haunts him in his sleep. The waves colliding with the side of his house, the boat he used to sneak into at night and drift along in, alone, lying on his back and thinking to himself (_god, I want to get out of here_) and how much he just wants to run away - those are the things he misses the most. The ocean comforted and soothed him - it was everything that his parents couldn't be and it understood him more than his friends ever could.

He kneels at the top of the Rising Falls, hands flat on the could stone and face moist with the spray of the waterfall that's flowing impossibly below him. The water isn't salty and the wind isn't warm, but it's as close as he can get to the ocean.

He misses the sunlight reflecting off of the water (_why is this place always so cold and dead and dark?_). The sunset had been his reprieve from the tension and the irritation that had started to crawl into his brain and eat away at him.

Maleficent calls for him, and he turns back to face her swiftly, hiding away the emotion that had leaked into his eyes, his back to the faux-ocean he had created for himself.

There is no sunset here, he realizes, and that realization makes him freeze over from the inside-out as he walks to her outstretched hand and takes it in his.


	17. Summer Skin

**Title**: Summer Skin  
**Rating**: K  
**Characters**: Hayner-centric, Seifer, very light Hayner/Roxas  
**Summary**: The summer after Roxas leaves, Hayner muses on how something feels like it's missing.  
**Notes**: Named after and based off of the song "Summer Skin" by Death Cab for Cutie.

* * *

Summer has never felt so ominous, so empty, before.

His footsteps sound dry and lonely out here as he walks on his own up the slope of Sunset Hill, hands shoved in his cameo pants' pockets, head tilted up toward the clear, sun-speckled sky. The remaining rays of sunlight glimmer on the water that surrounds this little terrace, far away from the rest of the town, and it looks like a melted pool of a thousand sapphires all blurred together and poured out around him. It's beautiful, and familiar, but he knows it's not the water that he's thinking of when he sees a flash of bright, bright blue and sunlight smiles.

He can't quite place it, however, and just pushes it to the back of his mind as he reaches the very top of the hill.

The dirt is sun-warmed from the day when he sits down on it. It's soothing, and he runs a bare hand over the smooth, stony surface, before he leans forward, lying flat on his stomach. Using his elbows he props his head up and watches as the sun dips down over the shimmering horizon.

The train tracks in the distance glitter iron-silver, map lines that lead off to a distant place that he dreams about when he has nothing else to dream of. He wonders if maybe that's where the blue went, whisked away in a little train off to somewhere else, somewhere better.

He knows that that's stupid, and sighs, plucking at the green grass that's sprouting up before him. He pulls off a piece, and holds it up between his fingers, spinning it around and around, admiring its shape and color illuminated by the sunlight behind it.

He lets it go, and watches as the breeze carries it away, pulling it like a puppeteer pulls a wooden doll by thin, clear strings. It spirals off, and he surveys it as long as he can, until it disappears from view in the distance, traveling to better places.

It's the first day of summer, and he's never felt so alone in his life. It's like someone came away and ripped a piece of his heart clear out of his chest and didn't bother to replace it with anything else, just left a gaping hole for him to muse over and cope with, but not know the cause to.

The wind kicks up, and from the distance, a spray of water washes up against the rocks of the terrace. He watches the clear-blue waves with a detached sense of longing, and thinks, "_there, out there with the waves is where I belong, where what's missing is_."

He hears footsteps behind him, and someone sits down at his side, just as silent as him. He knows who it is by the rustling of a coat, and he thinks that they really aren't that different, even if they have different opinions, different friends, because they're both here for the same reason.

They're searching, even if they don't know what they're searching for.


	18. Back To Back

**Title**: Back-To-Back  
**Rating**: K  
**Characters**: Seifer, Hayner (barely even there Seifer/Hayner, Hayner/Roxas, Seifer/Leon)  
**Summary**: Seifer and Hayner sit together, and share their dreams.

* * *

They sit back-to-back, heads tilted up to the heavens; his knee is pulled up to his chest, arm looped around that, and Seifer sits behind him, same pose, same expression.

He's dreaming of summer promises and friendly smiles that he has no idea how he remembers. He looks over his shoulder, toward Seifer, blonde hair slicked down with summer moisture. His sea-green eyes are hazy and unfocused, twin rough stones, but there's a certain glimmer to them, a glow of dreams and wars; of knights and witches; of rivals and lovers; of storm clouds and ice.

He looks back toward the sky, plunging into the wispy-blue world above, and dreams as well, dreams of a life that never existed yet feels so, so real to him, more so than any of this does.

By tomorrow, they'll be back to being rivals, two different sides of the spectrum.

But, for today, they sit here, back-to-back, and let themselves wander.


	19. Nightlife

**Title**: Nightlife  
**Rating**: K+  
**Characters**: Axel, Roxas  
**Summary**: The real world taunts him, so he taunts it right back.  
**Notes**: For Obscurity.

* * *

In his opinion, the nightlife has always been the best part of crawling out of the Darkness to peer around at the world that taunts them from far away, in his opinion. When the sun fades, and darkness creeps over the land, he comes out, sneaks away from the castle, alone, cloaked in darkness and sulfur and night, and stands, high up, away from everything and everyone beneath him, and watches them all, scurrying here and there. He likes to pretend he knows where they're going, likes to make up the tragedies of the lovers that meet in the dark corners of the alleyways, likes to plan the nights of the businessmen who cling tight to those little black suitcases, hurrying so fast that they don't notice the world around them.

He knows that he was like that, too, before, but it's been so long since then that he doesn't remember exactly what it was like.

He lies to himself that he doesn't care about remembering.

Crouched up here like a stone statue, a gargoyle swept up in midnight-black leather, he can see the world as it pours out beneath him. He feels powerful up here, like some greater force dictating and observing and altering their lives as he sees fit, playing with them because he has nothing left in this nonexistence of his to play with any more.

So he comes up here, and watches, and pretends that remembering isn't all that important and that memories aren't worth the hassle, and lies to himself about fire and smoke and _bullshit lives_.

Today, however, unlike every other day, he doesn't come alone. A smaller hand is looped around his, and he grins and talks and goes on and on about life, about his observations, about truths and fire and smoke and those bullshit lives they live, while the boy behind him follows in his darkness, faintly smiling, nodding his head but never speaking.

He brings him to the top of the building, thrusting open the metal roof door with a flourish. He releases the boy's arm, walking out to the center of the stone-speckled rooftop, and spins around on his heel, arms outstretched, mad little smile on his face.

"What do you think? You can see everything from here. All of the people running down there, worrying about nothing – we can watch them all up here, and they don't even know it." He laughs, like a child, like he hasn't laughed in a long time, and walks to the edge of the building, the boy close behind him. He leans over the cold, stone side, daring the wind to grab hold of him and drag him off of the top, and he can sense the boy next to him stiffening when he does that daring little movement of his, but he doesn't pull back, not until a hand falls on his shoulder.

He turns, facing the boy, but the boy isn't looking at him; instead, he can see the glimmer of streetlight and starlight reflecting in his baby-blue eyes, lighting up the usually empty gaze with a false flicker of life, as he watches the ground below, transfixed on the hurrying businessmen and the hidden lovers and the homeless nobodies.

He smiles, and nods, and knows that the boy understands everything now, just how he understands everything, and he looks away, back out toward the streets and the buildings and people below them.

Watching those lives makes theirs just that little bit more bearable, a little less fake and a little more interesting, lit up with the flame of faint, faint memories and barely-even-there emotions.


	20. Home

**Title**: Home  
**Rating**: K  
**Characters**: Riku  
**Summary**: Riku comes home.  
**Notes**: Kingdom Hearts II spoilers. For the themes 'home' and 'hate' at the Key Blade LiveJouranl Community.

* * *

Coming back home, he expected them to hate him. He had betrayed them, brought the darkness into his heart; had caused their home to fade, be engulfed in darkness before their very eyes, trapping them, swallowing them up, losing them. He had betrayed them, joined the wrong side.

By all means, they should hate him.

He prepared himself for that, for their angry stares and pointed fingers, and told himself that he deserved it.

When he came back, beaten and changed but victorious in the end, he was greeted with smiles. They were all there, standing at the back of the beach, grinning like the children they all really were.

He realized that, no matter what, this was where he belonged.

This was home.

And that would never change.


	21. Heroes and Villains

**Title**: Heroes and Villains  
**Rating**: K  
**Character**: Riku  
**Game**: Kingdom Hearts I  
**Summary**: Riku remembers fairytales from his childhood.  
**Notes**: For the theme 'children's stories' at the Key Blade LJ community.

* * *

As a child, Riku loved to read fairytales. He would lock himself in his room, books in hand, straight from the school library and a little out of breath from the run home, and throw himself onto his bed, curl into a tiny corner of the mattress with his comforter and his pillow and a little nightlight to keep him company, and he would read well into the night. He'd read about princesses and knights and castles, and he'd read about dragons and monsters and all of the myths that have ever been spread around about sea serpents and beautiful women whose voices would woo even the strongest of men and the knights who rode beautiful white horses and could save anyone and everyone they wanted to save, and he'd think, "that's what I want to be like." He'd fall asleep like that, curled around one of the books that smelled of sea-salt and damp pages and old paper, and he'd dream about a life where he was the one riding valiantly into battle and saving the princess (_Kairi_) and fighting off the evil villains (sometimes Sora or Tidus would be the villain, but he knew that would never happen) who tried to overthrow his King's kingdom (he's had a dream where Sora was the king, oddly enough, although he didn't think Sora could ever be a good king).

Now, sitting back in his room, when it's all over, holding onto the books that he hid under his bed and told the librarian he had lost just so he could keep the longer, Riku realized he wasn't the one to grow up to be the knight, or the king, and he never did get to save his princess, and he realized, a little broken-hearted, a little turned down, that fairytales and children's stories never really do come true.

(He only felt a little remorse when he threw out most of those books the next morning, and decided to try to write his own fairytales from now on; stories about a villain who turned good again, and fixed everything he had ruined, and a princess and her knights, and everything else he knew was really true in the end.)


	22. Summer's End

**Title**: Summer's End  
**Rating**: K  
**Characters**: Sora, Riku, Kairi (Riku/Sora/Kairi implied)  
**Game**: Kingdom Hearts I  
**Summary**: Summer is almost over, and they plan on leaving soon.  
**Notes**: For the themes 'trio,' 'holiday,' and 'here today, gone tomorrow' at the Key Blade LJ community.

* * *

"Summer's almost over, you know." The three of them are sitting in a circle, backs pressed together. Their hands are locked together between them – Sora has his fingers wrapped around both Kairi's hand and Riku's hand, and Riku's got them both, and Kairi doesn't really mind, because she likes being here, between them, like this. The wind is light, and messes their hair a little, but Kairi's the only one who really minds that, and she pushes her hair back with a tiny pout each time the wind picks up a bit and pulls her hair over her face.

Riku tilts his head back, against both of theirs, and looks up, to the star-speckled sky, and watches it for a moment. He's expecting something to happen, being the last weekend of summer and all, just like any child does when there's the looming shadow of school breathing down their necks, and they know that, soon, they won't be able to run free any more. He's expecting them to leave by tomorrow afternoon, because that's the plan, although the raft isn't quite finished yet, not yet. He wants to be gone by tomorrow; it'd be better than going back to school.

"Yeah, but if we leave, that won't matter. We could find somewhere else where it's summer all of the time." Riku says this as he reaches up toward the sky, aimlessly, playing connect-the-dots with the tip of his finger, making patterns only he can see out of the stars. He thinks he'd like to leave now, but he knows they can't – they have yet to finish the raft, or to write the notes to their parents they all promised to leave. He said notes were easier than actually saying goodbye, because goodbyes are hard and frustrating and will only make them homesick, in the end, and Sora and Kairi agreed, and so they planned to write letters. It's easier that way.

"Yeah, we could, couldn't we?" Sora confirms what he says, like he always does, and Kairi just smiles, innocent and sweet and a little apprehensive, like everything Riku says puts her on edge, like she doesn't quite trust this idea of leaving the island. Or something like that. Riku's never cared to find out exactly what it is that bothers her, and doesn't really care to now, because that's just how Kairi is, and he doesn't have the heart to question her.

"Think we can finish the raft before summer is over?" Kairi, always the one to think they can't do it. Riku wishes, sometimes, she'd just go along with what he says, like Sora does, but, instead, she always, always questions, always wonders, and that makes Sora wonder, too, and that makes getting things done just a little bit more complicated, because both of them doubt it, and don't really try as hard because of it.

"Of course we can. You two just need to stop lying around and help out for once." He teases them like always, and Sora pouts, and punches his arm, like always, and Kairi just giggles under her hand when Riku grabs Sora around the neck, arm holding him tight, and he smirks, and ruffles his hair.

"Alright, tomorrow we'll all work on it. The three of us." Sora grins and nods in approval, and Kairi beams, finally getting the idea, and Riku smiles, too, and lets Sora go so he can lean against them both again, like they should.

Holding hands, Riku feels like they really can do it, make their raft before summer is over and escape before school begins, because the three of them are working on it now, and he knows that, when they work together, they can get anywhere.


	23. All Grown Up

**Title**: All Grown Up  
**Rating**: K  
**Characters**: Riku, Sora  
**Game**: Kingdom Hearts I  
**Summary**: They're all grown up now.  
**Notes**: For the themes 'growing up,' 'keyblade,' and 'games' at the Key Blade LJ community.

* * *

It takes him several minutes of standing there, looking him up and down, watching his every move, to realize what's different. He's knows that he's changed, darkness in his senses and voice in his head and power under his fingertips, dark and deadly and sleek, black keyblade in his grasp, but he realizes that he's not the only one who's changed since they left the island, since he plunged into the darkness.

Sora's changed, too. He realizes it when he blocks his attack and spits out cold, cold words, lets him know he's the one who's messed up, charges at him and they fight, not a play fight, not a game, like last time, but a real fight, and he realizes that the keyblades in their hands and the power between them isn't the only way they've changed.

He realizes they've grown up. A little too fast, and a little awkward, and they aren't really ready for it, but they've grown up now. They had to. He thinks it's a little sad that they've grown up this way, him dark, Sora light, thinks it's a little sad that they're still only children, and they've grown up into men, into warriors, but he doesn't have time to think on it for too long. They fight like rivals and warriors and knights, battling over the princess.

They've grown up, and he realizes he wishes they didn't have to, but knows there's no other choice.


	24. Collection

**Title**: Collection  
**Rating**: K  
**Character**: Lexaeus  
**Summary**: The things he has collected over time.  
**Notes**: For the "time" challenge at the KH Drabble community.

* * *

He likes to think he's a collector.

His room is a testament to that: decorated in brilliant colors, with flourishing blossoms of cloth that drape from the walls and ceiling, veils that add a speck of warmth, like vines creeping up the walls and dripping from the roof, his room glows brightly in the cold death of this world.

He has taken the liberty to decorate it as he sees fit. The floor is soft beneath his bare feet, plush and smooth, a deep, earthy brown in hue, covered in a carpet he found in a world far away from this one where the sun was bright and the air was dry and warm. His bed sits in the middle of the room, not too big yet not too small; the sheets are of a rare silk he stole from some world, a matching earthy shade to the rest of his room. The pillows are made of the same fabric, embossed in golden trim and ornamented with dangling tassels that hang from the edges and brush over the top of his sheets and tickle his cheeks when he lays his head on them.

The carpet, the cloths, and the bed are not what he cherishes the most, however. It's the little things, the knick-knacks that are placed sporadically throughout the room, that he takes great pride in.

Wooden figurines that were carved by old men's fingers, warm with the essences of the ones who poured their time and life into creating them, line his walls. Iron brushes with soft bristles and mirrored backs that once belonged to women of high social status are placed on the tables and desks that have claws for feet and polished stone for tops. Paintings that depict places he has never been, has never seen, in vibrant, lively colors he never gets to see, hang from hammered, metal nails on his walls.

They are his treasures.

They tell of a time he once lived in. They tell him a story of a world he loves, and would love to go back to. They show him what he has to look forward to, what he has to hold dear, when they accomplish their goal.

Everyone here has their own reminders of the human world, their own things to look forward to: Marluxia has his flowers; Larxene has her literature; Demyx has his instruments.

He has the world's history, the creations of people who have passed.

He likes to think he's a collector.


End file.
